Democratic County Board members always justify the heavy development in Arlington with the unsupported claim that Arlington is using “smart growth.” They justify demolishing small houses and small garden apartment buildings and the paving over of open space with “smart growth.” They say Arlington should add more and more people, all of whom will be rich, and the environment will be better. This is a bogus argument on several levels.
First–is it “green” to demolish 50 year old houses and apartment buildings and to build much larger buildings in their place? In other words, will this “save carbon based fuel” from being used? For the most part, the amount of energy used to demolish, re-build, and manufacture the inputs in new structures will always be far higher than any energy saved. Why should a 50-year old structure be torn down and not remodeled or simply equipped with modern heating, cooling and solar technology?
The energy incorporated into constructing new buildings is enormus: the cement industry is one of the principal energy intensive industries as are virtually all other products such as wallboard, steel. Moreover, in our area, virtually all the rubble from demolition goes into solid waste fill (after being trucked long distances). Demolishing old buildings is NOT a green solution.
New buildings and new McMansions use many more times energy than do the smaller and older houses and apartments. A 5,000 square foot McMansion uses four times the energy to heat and cool as a small 1,300 ft2 brick colonial house. Most McMansions do NOT come with high efficiency air conditoners and furnaces. Affluent people in McMansions also own and use more cars as do affluent people living in apartments. The older apartment complexes simply have no parking places and most residents are lower income and thus have fewer vehicles per household than afflulent people.
High rise commercial buildings, whether for offices or apartments, use very high amounts of electricity and water. Their cooling towers generate large amounts of waste water that must be treated as sewage. Even if near a Metro stop, more workers and more residents mean more auto traffic trips.
Older apartments in Arlington are small, typically less than 1,000 ft2; often they have no dish washers and other energy intensive appliances. Because new apartments are larger, they use more energy to heat and cool. However, old apartments should be upgraded with Energy Star highly efficient appliances and windows, but this costs much much less than demolition and reconstruction.
The Democrats says they are using “smart growth.” Well the days of smart growth already occurred and Arlington has grown in population and density. Other jurisdictins also need to grow–in particular our neighbor DC with a population of only 560,000 (less than 1 million in the 1950s). Metro rail is already at capacity on the Orange line; do you really want another 30,000 people living in Clarendon and Va Square? Arlington is really into a phase of “stupid growth.”
In my opinion, Arlington cannot grow much more without seriously injuring our environment. The Democrats on the county board want to add another 40,000 people to Arlington, the smallest county in the entire U.S. We already a higher density than most major cities in the U.S. How dense should we get?
Arlington has about 26 square miles and now has over 202,000 residents with over 250,000 people here during the day. The county projects 236,000 residents within 8 years, a gain of over 34,000 or 17 percent. This means 17 percent more traffic, more sewage, more electricity used. Is this “smart growth” or just profit driven growth that destroys the great community of Arlington?
Should we eliminate all our trees? What do we do with our sewage and storm water? If traffic is bad now, what will it be with another 40,000? And, only rich people will live here since the land will be so valuable that no middle class folks can own or rent here anymore.
On Sept. 18, 2009, three Green Party members–John Reeder, Josh Ruebner and Audrey Clements, filed a lawsuit against the widening of I-66 highway in Arlington in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. The suit seeks a court order to halt the Va. Department of Transportation from beginning construction of a third west-bound lane on I-66 that would go for about 2 miles in Arlington from Fairfax Drive to Sycamore Street (East Falls Church).